Tag: statement

The following statement from Nayantara Sahgal was read out at the programme "Hastakshep: Jantantrik Aur Sanskritik Bahulata Ke Paksh Mein" in Gandhi Bhavan, Lucknow, December 28, 2016: The dangers we face today come from the fact that this Government is destroying the meaning of India, and step by step, stealthily and openly, is converting our secular…

22 November 2016 The District Magistrate of Indore has issued an order – Order/2956/RADM/2016, Indore/Date 14/11/2016 under Section 144 – banning any criticism on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc., on exchange of old currency that is “objectionable” or can “cause incitement”. The order is attached here. This, in effect, is a blanket…

An online petition demanding withdrawal of charges pressed against the academicians and activists by Chhattisgarh police in the case of murder of a tribal villager, has been receiving support not just from India, but also from parts of world like South Africa, UK and USA. The petition, uploaded by Prof. Aparna Sundar addressed to the president, prime minister…

We condemn the charges filed by the Chhattisgarh state police against members of a fact-finding team that visited the Bastar region in May this year. Those charged for the murder of Shamnath Baghel, a local political leader include Nandini Sundar and Archana Prasad, professors at Delhi University and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Vineet Tiwari of…

As of Monday, November 7, 2016, the National Alliance of People’s Movements unequivocally condemns the high-handedness of the BJP-led central government, its unprecedented assault on the freedom of press—the latest being the one-day selective ban on NDTV-India—and thereby an assault on the country’s right to know, right to question, right to dissent, and the very…

Following the order from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to take down NDTV India for a day on November 9, journalists and mediapersons have come out in strong opposition of what is being widely seen as the State's suspension of media freedom and the citizens' right to know. AINEF Opposes NDTV Ban The All…

Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust via Seliqui November 5, 2016 We strongly condemn the arbitrary and vindictive action by the Narendra Modi government, ordering the popular Hindi news broadcaster NDTV India off the air for a twenty-four-hour period. NDTV India has been accused of violating a 2015 amendment to the cable TV…

October 20, 2016. We, ordinary citizens, artists, intellectuals, writers, and poets from the Muslim community want to emphasise that the Muslim community in India is diverse, plural and heterogeneous. No single organisation or groups of people can claim to speak on behalf of the whole community. Muslims and people of Muslim descent living in India follow…

October 14, 2016 Once again, we raise our voices against the curbing of freedom of speech. At a literary meeting organised by the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad, writers Pradnya Pawar and Dr Raosaheb Kasabe had to leave the venue. They were asked to apologise for “hurting the sentiments of the Maratha community” and their “objectionable” statements…

The media has reported that the right-wing Bharat Swabhiman Manch (BSM) attacked members of the Indian People Theatre Association (IPTA) at Anand Mathur Sabhagrah, Indore. Over 700 members of the IPTA were attending the convention on theatre and society. On Tuesday, acclaimed filmmaker M. S. Sathyu criticised the attack on Pakistani artists when he spoke…

That the staging of a play written by the renowned writer and activist Mahasweta Devi would lead to questions, inquiry and "trouble" for two teachers of the English department of the Central University of Haryana, Snehsata and Manoj Kumar, is very hard to digest and must be condemned in the strongest of terms. The…

On 16th September, Delhi’s Parliament Street echoed with slogans of ‘Jai Bhim’ and ‘Lal Salaam’. The occasion was a massive Dalit Swabhiman Sangharsh Rally, held to protest recent incidents of violence against dalits across the country, which witnessed the coming together of people from marginalized caste and class groups. The rally, attended by thousands, affirmed…

Press Release from the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization On the walls of Ambedkar University Delhi, from a poem by Aharon Shabtai / Swati Gupta, sourced from Facebook The Coordination of Democratic Rights Organization denounces the arrest of Khurram Parvez on the intervening night of September 15-16 at 12.30 a.m. from his house in Srinagar….

News of the widely read Communalism: A Primer, written by eminent historian Bipan Chandra, being summarily discontinued from the wide repertoire of the National Book Trust has invited widespread criticism. It is the latest in a long line of attempts to limit history and social studies syllabi so as to confine them within the…

Professor Bipan Chandra was not only one of India’s foremost historians, but also one of the most uncompromising defenders of the secular and democratic cause in this country. As Chairman of the National Book Trust (NBT), he breathed a new life into it. We are shocked to learn that the very National Book Trust over…

Ganesh Devy via Businesszoom.in The brutal murder of the Kannada scholar Dr. M. M. Kalburgi in August last year had resulted in a sharp reaction from Indian intellectuals, literary scholars and artists. Earlier rationalist Dr. Narendra Dabholkar was killed in Pune and Comrade Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in Maharashtra. Reacting to these attacks…

Statement from the Indian Writers' Forum From the Cave of Hands, Argentina, ca. 7500 BCE / Pinterest On August 30th, it will be a year since scholar M. M. Kalburgi was murdered. Over the year, there have been innumerable responses of outrage, as well as demands from academics, cultural practitioners, activists and citizens that a)…

Statement from the Indian Writers’ Forum Lalgarh / Wikimedia Commons June 19, 2016 The award winning writer, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, has given us insights into the conditions of Adivasi life, both as a medical officer posted at the additional public health centre in Beldanga block of Pakur district in Jharkhand, and as a questioning, truth-telling creative writer….

All India Democratic Women’s Association AIDWA stands in solidarity with Pakistan’s women who reacted strongly to the statement made by Pakistan clergy to “Beat wives lightly” as a violation of the fundamental rights of women. We also condemn similar derogatory remarks by people holding public offices in India. We protested when the Women and Child…

We strongly condemn the Chhattisgarh government and its police force for using intimidation and threats of a criminal case against academics and political activists investigating human rights abuses in the southern parts of the state, especially Bastar and Dantewada. A fact finding team consisting of Prof. Archana Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Prof. Nandini Sundar,…

Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt Shahidbhagatsingh.org From a joint statement read in court by Asaf Ali on their behalf, on June 6, 1929. We then deliberately offered ourselves to bear the penalty for what we had done and to let the imperialist exploiters know that by crushing individuals, they cannot kill ideas. By crushing…

​The Indian Cultural Forum congratulate​s​ K​anhaiya Kumar​ on his speech at JNU after his release on bail​. We are proud to stand in solidarity with him​,​ as also with the ​thousands of JNU students and faculty who have ​supported him, and with the ​thousands of students from universities across the country who have demonstrated their…

We, the signatories to this statement, stand in solidarity with the student and faculty protests at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Student liberties, as well as the right to free speech protected in the Indian Constitution, were irreparably damaged by the State-sanctioned police action on the JNU campus, and the unjustified arrest of the student…

Image courtesy The Hindu I have just been informed by the Sahitya Akademi that their policy does not allow them to keep returned awards, and that they are returning the cheque I sent them in October 2015. The cheque is now invalid. It has taken the Akademi three months to inform their awardees of such…

Date: January 20, 2016 Time: 6.30 to 8 pm Venue: Tilak Putla, Mahatma Phule Mandai, Pune Rohit Vemula, a second year Ph. D. Dalit scholar of Hyderabad Central University (HCU) committed suicide in the afternoon of 17th January. He was found hanging in his room. He was among the five Dalit students who had been…

13th January, 2:00pm It will be now 85 days since we began our agitation against UGC after it scrapped the Non NET Fellowships for the M.phil/Phd students. Soon the matter was transferred to the MHRD and since then even after several demonstrations at MHRD and our continued occupation at the UGC premises, there has…

January 5, 2016 : We are shocked by press reports about a two day seminar ‘to mobilize public opinion for the Ram Janambhoomi temple’ which is being organized by Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth in Arts Faculty, Delhi University starting on 9 January. It is very clear that the seminar is not an academic activity, as it is…

Photo courtesy BGVS, http://www.bgvs.org/ It took 40 years for the hopes of independence to come true, or at least, to begin to be realized, when the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha took place in 1987. Education as an instrument of empowerment and agency was set to be realized, eventually. Within the next couple of years,…

25 filmmakers and film professionals, including Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah, Arundhati Roy, Ranjan Palit, Sanjay Kak, Pradeep Kishen returned their National Awards at the Press Club in Mumbai in protest of state sponsored violence and aggressive interference in academic and cultural institutions. Here are their personal statements: Virendra Saini I am returning this award in…